Book 4, Chapter 36: Trap
More than ten marksmen were hidden in the abandoned house. They were positioned in the narrow corridor and rooms lacking doors. Dozens of fit combatants held their breath while waiting for Wu Han and Wei Dong.
All of them belonged to the same mercenary group. A client had told them to pretend to kidnap a hostage to lure the two men into a trap and capture them alive.
Once Wu Han and Wei Dong stopped in front of the house, they got ready for combat, but the two exchanged a few words and left.
âWhatâs going on?â
âWhy did they leave?â
âWho the fuck exposed us?!â
They instantly lost their composure. Did someone let things slip? If the two left, they wouldnât be able to complete their mission.
âDamn it! Forget the plan! Get them! We need to grab those two!â the leader roared.
Five martial artists ran through the walls, while the marksmen positioned closer to the entrance ran to the windows and started firing at Wu Han and Wei Dong.
If Wu Han and Wei Dong had entered the house, they might have been caught off guard, but they were outside and on high alert. When they heard running in the house, they exchanged a glance and split up.
The next moment, a series of bullets landed behind them, but none hit them, since martial artists were really fast once they started running. Only a crack shot could possibly hit them.
After the martial artists rushed out, they headed straight for Wu Han and Wei Dong.
The mercenary group sent all five of their martial artists. They were men in their prime, between thirty to forty years old. Two of them went for Wu Han, and the other three went for Wei Dong.
The three going after Wei Dong were stronger. Their plan was to hold back Wu Han while they took down Wei Dong. Then, Wu Han would be left alone, and they wouldnât have to worry about anything.
Wu Han left the gunsâ range and entered a place where they couldnât see him.
However, the two martial artists caught up to him. They were pretty experienced and werenât in a hurry to engage him. They just kept following him.
Wu Han had seen Wei Dong being surrounded by three martial artists. If this were a normal situation, he wouldnât have thought that those three could do anything to Wei Dong, but this was definitely abnormal, so he didnât run far. Once he reached an empty space, he stopped and turned around to face the two martial artists.
The two had iron chains in their hands, along with other weapons. The moment they saw Wu Han stop, they stopped as well, but they didnât attack him.
They were in charge of holding him back. If Wu Han didnât move, they werenât going to move either. Once they got Wei Dong, the other three would rush over and make it much easier to take down Wu Han.
They were paying more attention to Wei Dong because he was a student of Martial Valor University. This alone made him no easy target, so they had allocated their stronger martial artists to him.
What they didnât know was that Wu Han was also from Martial Valor University and had studied under the national martial arts education system. He had a wealth of fighting experience under his belt too. Since he took up a lot of missions, he did not lack money to buy the medicine he needed for his training.
Wu Han tossed away the spear harness on his back, leaned forward, stomped on the ground, and charged at one of the martial artists.
The mercenary positioned his longsword in the middle and moved into a defensive stance. The other one also got ready by unfurling his iron chain. The moment Wu Han engaged the first martial artist, the second one would assist from the side.
But in just a short moment, Wu Han had already arrived within two meters of the first martial artist. Judging from his stance, he was about to thrust his spear forward, but he suddenly wrapped his index and middle fingers around the spear shaft and shifted from a standard grip to a reverse grip, with his thumb facing inward. Then, with the help of the momentum generated from his charge, he threw the spear forward.
Since he was using far too much power, his feet left the ground for a brief moment due to inertia the moment the spear left his hand.
The first martial artist hadnât considered the possibility that he would throw his spear at such a short distance, so he wasnât able to react on time. The spear went straight through his mouth and came out of the back of his head.
While the second martial artist was rushing over, Wu Han landed on the ground and used his momentum to lunge forward. He grabbed the first martial artist, turned his back outward and used it as a shield. Because of it, he also disappeared from view.
When the second martial artist saw the spear tip that came out of the first martial artistâs head, he came to a screeching halt. Just then, his companionâs corpse was thrown at him.
He dodged to the side and let the corpse pass him by, but he couldnât see Wu Han anywhere. He was stunned, then realized what was going on. When he turned around, he saw Wu Han sticking close to his companionâs body while staring at him. The second martial artistâs eyes flew wide open.
Before he could react, Wu Han charged over. He reached out, grabbed his head with one hand, seized his jaw with the other, and used the momentum from his movements to yank his head downwards.
Crack!
The second martial artistâs head flopped to the back, broken.
Once Wu Han landed, he let the corpse in his hands fall to the ground. He turned around and dashed away. On his way, he grabbed his short spear from the first corpse, wiped the sticky blood on his sleeve and ran straight to where he had last seen Wei Dong.
***
Qi Gao was waiting in the SUV. While Wei Dong and Wu Han carried out the missions, Qi Gao was in charge of negotiations and supporting them. He planned out routes and performed all sorts of back-end support work.
While he wasnât a martial artist, he was a veteran agent. He could use all sorts of firearms with ease, so he could fight to a certain degree.
Once he heard the sound of gunshots, he instinctively thought that something was wrong. Then, he looked into the distance and saw Wu Han and Wei Dong getting chased.
Qi Gao immediately got out of his SUV and went to the trunk. He dragged out a box and opened it swiftly. Inside it was a combat praying mantis their team had gotten their hands on during a mission.
It required nutrient and calorie-dense nutritional fluid, which cost an arm and a leg, so even with all their money pooled together, they had only managed to buy two portions.
Based on the instruction manual, Qi Gao quickly injected the nutritional fluid. A moment later, the combat praying mantis tore open its thick packaging and jumped out.
Qi Gao gave it a signal and pointed forward. The combat praying mantis jumped forward, spread its wings, and zipped straight for the marksmen who had run out of the house.
Since they knew that Wu Han and Wei Dong didnât have firearms, the marksmen didnât settle into any sort of formation when they ran out. At that moment, though, they suddenly saw a gray blur.
Whoosh!
The one leading the charge was cut in two.
Shock overtook the group, and they saw something sticking itself to the walls of one of the other terraced houses. It glared at them with red, compound eyes, while its sharp forelegs stood out like sore thumbs.
âBioweapon!â one of the marksmen cried out.
They couldnât care less about chasing after Wu Han and Wei Dong anymore and started firing at the combat praying mantis, which charged at them. When the bullets landed on its keratin shell, they might as well have struck metal. The bullets bounced off. Then, with a swing of its forelegs, the combat praying mantis beheaded another person. It jumped into the crowd, and its sharp abdominal legs pinned one more person to the ground while he screamed.
Bioweapons were different from one another. Combat praying mantises were the iconic models of Compound Eyes. They were fast, powerful, and could fly. Not every average Second Limit martial artist could defeat them, so the marksmen who only had regular military-grade implants had even less hope of doing that.
Within a short moment, three people were killed. Upon seeing that things were going downhill for them, the other marksmen fled. But it was useless. Combat praying mantises moved like the wind. It rushed over and killed them all. Not a single person survived. The bioweapon only stopped fighting when the last person had his head removed a kilometer away from the rest.
***
Right when the combat praying mantis jumped into the midst of the marksmen, Wu Han made it to Wei Dong. He stopped once he saw that the three martial artists were already defeated, and Wei Dong was cleaning his bloody boxing gloves.
âNot bad, you bastard,â he laughed and cursed.
Their attackers had to have thought that Wei Dong was at the same level of strength as regular students of Martial Valor University, but that wasnât the case. Wei Dong had made it to the main campus from a branch campus, after all.
Qi Gao rushed over and asked, âWhat happened?â
âI think this mission was a trap. Wait here. Iâll take a look,â Wu Han said.
He went into the house and found that the âhostageâ was a mannequin. They hadnât even bothered to find an actor. If Wei Dong hadnât noticed anything, things might have gone horribly wrong for them.
If a dozen guns opened fire at them in a cramped space, they wouldnât have been able to run away.
Well... Wei Dong might have been able to make it out, since he had his body-hardening technique, but Wu Han would have died.
Wu Han dragged the mannequin out. Regardless of whether the hostage was real or not, they had completed their mission. Since they found the âhostage,â their client had to pay them.
He discussed things with Wei Dong and Qi Gao. Once they came to the conclusion that this was no simple matter, they contacted Chen Chuan. After the call went through, they gave him a simple rundown of events.
Chen Chuanâs gaze turned profound and calm after hearing it. âDonât take up any missions over the next two days. Once Iâm done with my problem, Iâll contact you.â
âOkay. Guess weâll be taking a break for a few days.â
After Chen Chuan ended his call with the trio, he went to the balcony and called Gao Ming. Soon, Gao Ming answered, and Chen Chuan asked, âAre you okay?â
âIâm currently in charge of a few important clients, and theyâre really powerful. The law firm isnât going to switch me out halfway through. Iâve been staying in a safe house and wonât be going anywhere. Iâll wait for you to solve your problem,â Gao Ming answered with a laugh.
âYou do that,â Chen Chuan said with a hum.
Once the call ended, he looked outside. According to the purity faction, they would give him an answer in the afternoon. There were still two hours until then, so he was going to wait, but if they couldnât settle it, he was going to take things into his own hands.